Last weekend I had a few minutes to kill before an appointment and decided to stop at a garage sale that featured many boxes of books. I picked up a couple that immediately caught my eye and ultimately one more as I saw a small paperback book entitled "Spiders and their Kin." For $.50, I had to have it. I wanted to know more about the eight legged friends that had made their home just outside my garage.
As I was getting into my car a few days earlier, I noticed that a spider had built its web just outside my garage door. Unfortunately for this spider, the web was directly in the path of my car as I backed out. My car took the beautiful work of this spider with me as I left for the day. The next morning, however, as the garage door went up I was pleased to see that the spider had reconstructed its web and it was better than the one before. Plus, the spider had learned its lesson and moved the web closer to the house and out of the path of my car. That web is still there today as it continues to collect the bugs that are trying to make it into my house.
The beauty of God's creation never ceases to amaze me, and in this case, I had to stop and appreciate the spider's ability to persevere, and more importantly, its ability to learn. Instead of spinning the web in the same spot, the spider moved the web to a better location. It may seem presumptious to think that a spider can learn, but even if you categorize it as instinct, it is still worth our admiration.
This is especially true when we consider that nature's instinctive learning compared to a human's spiritual learning skills can sometimes prove to be a mismatch (not in our favor). How often do we experience stress, anger, regret, grief or other emotions as the result of our own doing only to repeat those same actions, which later result in the same consequences? Too often. The Bible and the rest of history tells us that we are poor learners. We love learning the hard way - over and over again.
Th book of Proverbs reminds us that we must constantly be learning in order to grow in our relationship with God. "Wise men and women are always learning, always listening for fresh insights." (Prov. 18:15) The next time I experience a set back in my spiritual journey Iwill remember the spider's web. And as I move forward, I will hopefully move the web closer to my home.
1 comment:
You are much gentler that I would have been. I would have been out there with the can of Raid! I like the spiritual implications of this blog. Thank the Lord that he doesn't use a can of Raid on me when I need to learn a lesson.
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